Friday, February 29, 2008

Making the jump

Today was my last day of full-time employment. Because the organization is closing down, the atmosphere was a bit strange. We’ve lost a few people who have found jobs to go to, so the remaining staff consists of a couple of people who haven’t found anything else to do yet, me, and the three directors who are all retiring. The remnant also includes a small hospitality team, who are staying on for the time being pending decisions about what will happen to the Foundation’s assets, which includes a beautiful Portland Place house that is run as a hotel for scientists, as well as offices for the scientific program.

So it was only natural that today had a bit of sadness to it, coupled with a bit of panic concerning clearing out our stuff and disentangling all the non-work material from the computer and email system (actually, this was mainly on my part, because I’ve not been very good at keeping my ‘work’ work and 'wine' work separate, nor did I leave enough time to clear out my junk, including quite a few boxes of wine in the basement), coupled with a sense of anticipation about what the future holds. To mark the occasion we had some wine with lunch: a vibrantly berryish Carmen Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile’s Maipo, and an apple-and-spice flavoured Pinot Blanc from an Alsace producer whose name has flown my rather congested mind.

Leaving a workplace after many years in a job is a bit like packing for holiday. You know you can’t take everything (not easily—I’ve got literally scores of books, lots of wine, masses of papers, and gigabytes of documents on my PC), but it’s still hard to leave things behind or deleting them.

I made the leap from paid employment to freelancing (in my case running projects) 10 years ago and am so glad I did. Yes, of course I had moments when I wondered why I made the move but they have been few and far between.

Good luck to you Jamie and I look forward to even more incisive comments, interesting stuff and reviews of accessible wines.